JUSTIN TRUDEAU IS CANADA’S NEXT PRIME MINISTER

[WORLD NEWS ★★]

JUSTIN TRUDEAU IS CANADA’S NEXT PRIME MINISTER

(P1) Canada’s Liberal leader Justin Trudeau rode a late SURGE to a STUNNING majority election victory on Monday, TOPPLING Stephen Harper’s Conservatives with a promise of change and returning a touch of GLAMOR, youth, and CHARISMA to Ottawa.

(P2) Harper CONCEDED defeat and the Conservative party announced his resignation, ending a nine-year run in power.

(P3) The Liberals SEIZED a Parliamentary majority. The center-left Liberals had been a distant third place party before this election.

(P4) “My friends, we beat fear with hope. We beat CYNICISM with hard work. We beat negative, DIVISIVE politics with a positive vision that brings Canadians together,” Trudeau, 43, told a crowd of cheering supporters in Montreal.

(P5) “This is what positive politics can do.”

(P6) The PHOTOGENIC son of former PRIME MINISTER Pierre Trudeau PLEDGED to stimulate Canada’s ANEMIC economic growth.

(P7) Trudeau thanked his closest friends and advisers for shaping his campaign to show “that you can appeal to the BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE. And you can win doing it.”

(P8) Trudeau has said he will repair Canada’s cool relations with the Obama administration, WITHDRAW Canada from the COMBAT mission against Islamic State militants in favor of HUMANITARIAN AID and training, and TACKLE climate change.

(P9) Trudeau VAULTED from third place to lead the polls in the final days of the campaign, and will now return to the Prime Minister’s residence in Ottawa where he grew up as a child.

(P10) “When the time for change strikes, it’s LETHAL,” former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said in a television interview. “I ran and was successful because I wasn’t Pierre Trudeau. Justin is successful because he isn’t Stephen Harper.”

(P11) Liberal supporters at the party’s campaign headquarters broke into cheers and whistles when television projected that Trudeau would be the next prime minister.

(P12) The Conservatives become the official opposition in Parliament, with the left-leaning New Democratic Party in third.

(P13) Trudeau TOOK CHARGE OF the Liberal Party just two years ago and guided it out of the political wilderness with a pledge of ECONOMIC STIMULUS and stirring appeals for a return to social liberalism.

(P14) Trudeau will become the second-youngest prime minister in Canadian history and, like his father, brings an appeal more common in movie stars than STATESMEN. He is the married father of three young children.

(P15) Criticized for being more style than substance, Trudeau has used attacks on his good looks and privileged upbringing to win over voters, who recalled his father’s ROCK STAR presence and an era when Canada had some SIZZLE on the world stage.

(P16) Pierre Trudeau, who died in 2000, was in power for 15 years – with a brief interruption – and remains one of the few Canadian leaders to be known abroad.

(P17) Single when he took power, the elder Trudeau dated movie stars and models before marrying. He had three boys while serving as prime minister, the eldest of whom now succeeds him in the nation’s top office.

WORDS: 486

SOURCE: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/20/us-canada-election-idUSKCN0SD17X20151020

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

If you found the passage difficult to read or had problems understanding specific words or idiomatic expressions, please discuss them with your tutor. The following discussion questions should be answered in your own words and with your own arguments.

1. Briefly summarize the content of the article in your own words.
2. Justin Trudeau benefits from the fame of his father and is now part of a political DYNASTY. Are there important political dynasties in your country, such as the Trudeaus, Kennedys, Bushes, or Clintons?
3. Justin Trudeau’s youth, good looks, energy, and family background combine to give him a genuine STAR QUALITY. How important is star quality in politics?
4. Trudeau’s political principles are highly liberal and PROGRESSIVE, like Barack Obama’s. Do you think that is the basic direction of world politics today?
5. What POLITICAL PARTIES are dominant in your country today?
6. The phrase “the better angels of our nature” comes from a speech by Abraham Lincoln, who is often considered the greatest American president. Who have the greatest leaders of your country been?

EXPRESSIONS TO PRACTICE:

What do the following expressions mean? Practice using each expression in a sentence; extra points if you can use it in conversation.

• Prime Minister
• Better angels of our nature
• Humanitarian aid
• Take charge of
• Economic stimulus
• Rock star
• Star quality
• Political party